Yoshimi Battles the Pink RobotsLa Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, Calif., (858) 550-1010Throughout this new musical, “our ears are delighted at a higher level than our eyes or our minds,” said the Los Angeles Times. Inspired by the music of the Flaming Lips, its story about an artist battling cancer becomes “a chemotherapy fantasia,” yet its inventive visuals can’t match its “haunting” score.

Welcome Home, Jenny SutterNext Theatre, Evanston, Ill., (847) 475-1875 Julie Marie Myatt’s play is a “wise, searing, often mordantly funny” take on post-traumatic stress disorder, said the Chicago Sun-Times. The title character, a wounded Marine who tries to adjust to life after war, is brilliantly played by Lily Mojekwu. Her “luminous face says as much as, if not more than, her words.”

ChesapeakeNew Repertory Theatre, Watertown, Mass., (617) 923-8487 “An aura of smug self-congratulation” undermines Lee Blessing’s 1999 play about a performance artist clashing with a conservative senator, said The Boston Globe. Yet Georgia Lyman is superb as the sole performer, bringing “an expressive physicality” to each character, including a dog.